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Now and then a patriarchal old pine lifted far above the 
lesser trees holding out the dazzling snow on its branches. 
“Come in. Come in,” the girl whispered, “Christmas is 
in here” 


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588 

Walter jprtrijarb ^aton 

Author of 

“Barn Doors and Byways,” 

“The American Stage of Today,” etc. 


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1913 



Copyright, 1913, by 
McBride, Nast &^Co. 



Published November, 1913 


©CI,A 358527 


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iiatt 1II|0 3 Totttth 


is nothing more humdrum and con- 
■ ventional than the life of a young bachelor 

in New York. If this statement destroys 
anybody’s illusions, we are sorry, but the truth must 
be told. Wallace Miller was a young bachelor in 
New York, and the only unconventional thing in his 
life was the To-Hell-with-the-Merry-Yule-Tide As- 
sociation, which met every Chrismas Eve, and dined. 
And, alas, even that dinner was conventional, — Del- 
monico’s and dress coats! His profane association 
numbered six members. There was Mercer, who had 
organized it and supplied the original profanity; he 
was city editor of a daily paper, and had to work on 
Christmas day, so perhaps may be forgiven. There 
was Jack Gleason, formerly one of Mercer’s reporters 
but now a playwright, who supplied most of the good 
spirits, which Mercer said was no wonder, since he 
had an income of $20,000 a year. There was Gilsey, 
a short, dark, thick-set, scowling man with an aston- 
ishing vocabulary of invective and all the instincts 
of a born iconoclast, who by day was sub-editor of a 
mild religious weekly. There were Smith and Sted- 
man, brokers and club mates of Miller’s, who resembled 
closely their kind, even to the angle at which they 


2 Cl)c #an jFoun0 ClJtistmas! 

pushed back their hats when sitting in the club before 
dinner. Finally there was Wallace Miller himself, 
who had begun his New York career after leaving 
college as a reporter under Mercer, like Gleason, but, 
being blessed — if it was a blessing — with a small 
inherited income, had abandoned journalism for “ let- 
ters,” and sought to create literature in a littered 
apartment down a side street not too far from his 
club and the magazine offices. 

When Mercer had broached to him the idea of the 
To-Hell-with-the-Merry-Yule-Tide Association, he 
had fallen in eagerly with the scheme. 

“Fine!” he cried. “I loathe Christmas. The 
club is always so desolate on that day, and the service 
so bad! Every year you have to subscribe to an em- 
ployees’ Christmas fund, and then when the day ar- 
rives half the employees are missing and the rest act 
as if they wish they were. There’s nobody to dine 
with. You have to sit at the general table, with men 
you don’t know, and every last one of ’em eats as if 
his food choked him. It’s worse than Sundays in 
August. Besides, I’ve got an aunt in Somerville, 
Mass., who always sends me a present! You bet I’m 
for the association ! ” 

The other four members had been carefully selected 
from a host of possible candidates, each one on the 
basis of his genuine contempt for this particular holi- 
day. Gilsey had declared that he, personally, would 
support Christmas as soon as anybody he knew really 
gave Christianity a trial, but under the circumstances 
felt safe in taking out a life membership. So the new 
association was assembled, and held its first dinner on 
Christmas Eve, whereat plans for the next summer’s 


Ci)e jFounD Cfitistmag 3 

vacation were discussed. The dinner was followed 
the ensuing year by a second, and again by a third, for 
there had been no defections from the ranks. They 
seemed, indeed, matrimonially and Christmas-spiritu- 
ally impregnable. December of the fourth year had 
come, and with it a snowstorm. Wallace Miller 
still lived in his littered apartment, down a side street, 
a little more prosperous than of old, but even more 
wedded to his habits. 

He was digging in the bottom drawer of an old 
secretary one afternoon, hunting for a long buried 
manuscript (after the fashion of authors), when he 
came upon a bundle of ancient souvenirs, dusty and 
forgotten. Dropping all other tasks, as one will when 
suddenly confronted by visible tokens of one’s past, 
he untied the parcel and began going through it. It 
was a motley collection — the program of his prepar- 
atory school Class Day exercises; the class prophecy he 
had read on that occasion, full of names many of which 
he could not now connect with the forgotten faces; 
a dance card, equally full of disembodied initials; a 
photograph of the old, square house amid its apple 
trees where he had lived as a boy, and which he ten- 
derly laid aside; another photograph of a face between 
parted strands of heavy hair, a face once loved with 
the chivalric passion of seventeen. Wallace looked 
at this picture a long time, as the memories crowded 
back upon him, and laid it back with a wistful smile. 
Then he resumed his inspection of the package. Next 
came a blank book full of quotations copied in a 
boyish hand — and mostly sentimental — and another 
blank book labeled ‘‘ story plots.” He remembered 
that one; it was compiled when he was “ trying for ” 


4 Cl)e ^an COtio ifcunD Cfiristmas 

the preparatory school literary monthly. The plots 
were amusingly melodramatic. Below these books 
came souvenirs of still earlier years, which must have 
been saved by his mother — childish compositions, a 
letter he had written home when he went on his first 
visit without his parents, and finally a big Christmas 
card. 

As he turned this card to the light, to see it better, 
a sudden wave of memories swept in over the threshold 
of his consciousness and he sat quite still while they 
had their way with him. The card, in color, depicted 
a small boy in a long nightie standing before a big 
fireplace with his hands stretched to the blaze. The 
warm red glow of the fire illumined his face and 
nightie. From the mantle hung a stocking. Behind 
him was a window, with small leaded panes, and 
through this window you saw a church roof, white 
with snow, and a cold moon riding high. Below the 
picture, in old English type, were the words 

^ettg CStistmasi 

Long, long ago, in the forgotten, dim years of child- 
hood, he had loved that card. Once, he recalled, he 
had taken it to bed with him. The cold moonlight 
in contrast to the warm red fire had fascinated him, 
and the great, wallowing flames, and the jolly stocking. 
Dimly there came back to him the awareness of white 
roofs visible from his own window in the moonlight, 
of his own stocking hung up, of wallowing flames and 
his father’s big, hearty voice, and a Christmas tree 
in the morning, with a red sled under the branches 
and a star on the top. 

He sat on the floor with the card in his lap, still 


CJje ^an mbo jFound CtJtistraas! 5 

and silent. Outside the snow was falling steadily. It 
was growing dim in the room. The steam pounded 
suddenly in the radiator. Wallace looked up angrily. 
The place was certainly gloomy, lonely, oppressive. He 
put the card hastily back into the package, slammed 
the drawer shut, and set off for his club, without light- 
ing the lamps. Outside, the streets were already sloppy 
with the snow, and horses were falling down. Wal- 
lace vaguely recalled his boyhood delight in the first 
snow fall, his dash out into the drifts, upturning his 
face to meet the soft sting of the descending flakes. 
He turned his face up now, and snow went down his 
collar. He looked down again, and saw that the bot- 
toms of his newly pressed trousers were getting drag- 
gled. Stepping off the curb into an apparently firm 
drift, he sank ankle deep in gutter slosh. He swore 
crossly to himself, as he stamped and shook the snow 
from his feet and garments and entered his club. 

It was that hour preceding dinner when the club 
was full. Young men like himself were sitting in 
groups in the grill room, their hats tipped back on their 
heads, canes across their laps, highball glasses before 
them. He could hear confused scraps of their conver- 
sation — . . took a tumble today, all right. If it 
goes much lower it’ll wipe out my margins ” ; ‘‘ — you 
bet, it’s some show, and that girl on , . “ — no, 

you should have made it no trumps.” In corners men 
were absorbed in the asinine game of dominos. Wal- 
lace suddenly reflected that the amount of domino play- 
ing which goes on in New York clubs is a good argu- 
ment for woman’s suffrage. Several men hailed him 
with the usual “ What’s yours ? ” but he passed them 
by and went up to the squash courts. There, at least. 


e Ci)c ^an aiQlJo jfounD Cfitistmasi 

men were getting exercise, he thought. The courts 
were full, so that he could not play. They smelled 
sweaty and stale. He went back downstairs, and 
found Smith and Stedman, just up from downtown, 
joining them in the inevitable cocktail. 

“ About time we began to plan our To-Hell-with- 
the-Merry- Yule-Tide feast, isn’t it?” Stedman asked. 

I noticed to-day that all the shops were crowded, 
and a poor gink in our office showed me a ring he’s 
had to buy for his wife. The silly season is upon us.” 

“ I suppose it is,” said Wallace, suddenly reminded 
of their association. Hope I sha’n’t be out of town 
for Christmas.” 

“What’s that?” cried the others. 

Wallace was rather surprised himself at his words, 
for he hadn’t the slightest intention till that moment 
of being out of town. But the card had made him 
unconsciously long for Christmas, for a real Christmas 
such as his childhood knew. 

“ I might be taking a trip soon,” he replied. “ I’m 
a bit stale on the town.” 

“Nonsense,” said Smith. “You’re the most con- 
firmed New Yorker of the bunch. You’ll be here. 
Where on earth could you go ? ” 

Wallace made no reply. He didn’t know where he 
could go, to find a welcome, and the thought somehow 
hurt him. They went out to the dining room and 
consumed the usual dinner, every item of which could 
be predicted. After dinner they went to the theatre, 
to a new musical comedy every song and dance and joke 
of which could be predicted with equal certainty. 
Then Wallace went home to his apartment, after the 
usual half hour at the club for a nightcap. It was 


C!)c ^an JOfto jFounD C6ti0tmas 7 

cold and dismal in the apartment, “ Also as usual,” he 
suddenly reflected. The next morning it was still 
dismal. Rather than work, he went out into the 
streets, through Madison Square which showed some 
traces of yesterday’s snow, and up the Avenue. The 
shops were gay. A toy store window attracted him. 
He saw many children going inside, with radiant faces 
of expectancy. One of them smiled at him. - 

“ I’d like to give somebody something,” he suddenly 
thought. ‘‘ It would seem rather nice.” He walked 
on. The pavements and walks were sloppy, but all 
faces were cheerful. Christmas seemed to be in the 
air. Wallace felt curiously aloof from the life about 
him, isolated, lonely. Why had he hated Christmas? 
Was it not, perhaps, just because he was lonely, iso- 
lated? Was not the fault with him rather than Christ-/ 
mas? This was a disconcerting reflection. He put 
it away from him, and went to the club for lunch. 
Gilsey was there, holding forth “ agin the government,” 
as the old phrase had it. 

“Christmas!” he was saying. “Christmas is now 
degenerated into a season when most people have to 
study out how they can afford to give useless presents 
to all the people who have given useless presents to 
them. They can’t afford it, but they do it. Getting 
generous by calendar is almost as spontaneous as kissing 
your wife — if you’re so unfortunate as to have one — 
by the clock. It’s . . .” 

“ It’s something rather nice, as I remember it,” 
Wallace interrupted. 

“What?” roared Gilsey. tuf You’d better 

consult a doctor 1 ” 

“ Gilsey,” the other answered, “ did you ever try 


8 Clje ^an m^o jFoutiD Cftri 0 tmasi 

the band wagon instead of the scorner’s seat on the 
brownstone steps ? ” 

Gilsey looked at his friend with a comical expression 
of quite genuine grief. “I — I don’t know what you 
mean, Wallie,” he said. 

‘‘ Never mind,” said the other, contritely, “ doubt- 
less I don’t mean anything. I’ve been a bit upset by 
a memoir of my dead life, that’s all.” 

But after lunch he returned to his apartment and 
took the memoir from the drawer again, looking ten- 
derly at the little chap in the fire-lit nightie. “ My 
dead life — yes,” he reflected, sentimentally touched by 
the memories. “ That Christmas spirit of those days, 
can it not be found again? Is one foolishly seeking 
a lost Eden to search for it? Moonlight on a white 
world, a Christmas tree, the merry screams of children 
— of children — ” 

His reflections trailed off into incoherence, and 
chiefly he was aware of an oppressive sense of loneli- 
ness. The thought of his club bored him. Gilsey, 
with his eternal knocking, bored him, the To-Hell- 
with-the-Merry-Yule-Tide Association struck him as 
rather a farce, not to say a pose. He wanted Christ- 
mas, that was the size of it. He wanted something 
he did not possess and in his present surroundings 
could not possess. He was living outside of Christ- 
mas. 

“I’m a sort of a man without a country,” he sud- 
denly thought. “ Gilsey, Smith, Gleason — we all 
are. We are single men in New York. I’m going 
to find Christmas! I’m going to find moonlight on 
white roofs! I’m going to find that kid in the white 
nightie! ” 


C6e #an mbo jFouno Cftristmas 9 

He rose abruptly, and began to pack his bag and 
steamer trunk. He had no idea where he was going, 
but he was very cheerful. He felt like whistling, and 
found himself whistling a long forgotten tune which 
his father had sung to him twenty years before. It was 
the ancient carol of Good King Wenceslaus, 

That evening he did not go to the club to dine. The 
next morning, early, he was at the Grand Central Sta- 
tion, where he selected various time tables and hotel 
guides, and retired with them to the waiting room. 
He might have gone to the town of his birth and 
childhood, but for many reasons he did not care to. 
A trolley, he knew, ran past the big house where he 
had lived. Perhaps the house no longer stood there! 
The spawn of the city had by now reached the village ; 
it would be no longer country, but suburb. He did 
not want a suburb. Neither did he desire to hazard 
enjoying Christmas in the shouts of children whose 
mother’s picture now reposed in his dusty drawer amid 
the souvenirs of his buried youth. So he ran through 
lists of stations till his eye chanced upon North Tops- 
ville, Massachusetts. The name pleased him. There 
was a South Topsville, also, though Topsville itself 
did not exist so far as the railroad was concerned. 
South anything, he reflected, is usually the part of the 
community which has the mills and motion picture 
theatre — just why nobody has satisfactorily explained; 
so he cast his lot with North Topsville, and purchased 
a ticket for that place. An hour later he was sitting 
in a Pullman car and leaving New Rochelle behind. 

By the time the train was well up into the New 
England hills, it had begun to snow again. Wallace 
looked out of the car window fascinated by the pan- 


10 Cfie ^an TOo jTounD Cfttistmais 

orama of reddish gray hillsides seen through the white 
storm. As station after station was passed, each tak- 
ing its quota of passengers from the train, each passen- 
ger met on the platform by welcoming friends or rel- 
atives, the Pullman began to be almost empty. 
Wallace felt lonely. There would be nobody to wel- 
come him at North Topsville. He felt rather sorry 
he had come when he reflected on this. After all, his 
search was probably hopeless. He ate luncheon, and 
became more cheerful, for the train was passing out 
of the storm into a glittering, white world of broad 
valleys and lovely hills and snug farmhouses on the 
roads between tidy New England villages where 
beautiful naked elms arched the streets. At South 
Topsville, sure enough there was a big mill, and down 
the street from the station a motion picture theatre. 
Wallace grinned at the correctness of his intuition 
(“Almost feminine!’* he thought), and began to 
put on his coat. The train ran into snowy meadows, 
into a strip of woodland and swamp, and then emerged 
into a gentle intervale where graceful vase elms 
fringed a stream, and came to a stop at the North 
Topsville station. Wallace alighted — the only pas- 
senger to do so — and the train moved on. He stood 
with his grip beside him and looked about. The sta- 
tion was a small one. Beyond it a road stretched 
across the meadow to the village street, where he saw 
a white steeple. On the other side of the tracks lay 
a snowy field, then a road with two or three farm- 
houses upon it, then the steep wall of a mountain. 
The station agent was up the platform examining his 
trunk. Beside the platform stood a pung of ancient 


Cfte ^an caijjo JFouttD Cfttistmasi ll 

vintage, and in it was seated a young man swinging 
his arms against his chest for warmth. 

Wallace took a step toward him, and the youth 
nodded. “ Be you goin’ ter the hotel ? ” he said. 

“ I am if there is one, and you are,” Wallace 
answered. 

“ I be ef you be,” the youth replied, “ and there is. 
Hev ter come back agin fer the trunk,” he added. 
“ Most folks as come here in winter is drummers, an’ 
they travel light — sample case an’ tooth brush an’ a 
copy of the Saturday Evenin’ Post. What’s your 
line ? ” 

“ Christmas,” Wallace answered with a laugh, as 
the pung moved across the meadows in the cold, crisp 
country air. 

“ Wall, I reckon now’s the time ter sell that,” the 
young man answered imperturbably. “ Quite a brisk 
demand fer it these days. My little gel, she’s writ a 
letter ter Santa Claus thet’s goin’ ter nigh bust him, 
I reckon, him bein’ me.” 

Have you a little girl?” Wallace asked in sur- 
prise. 

“ Gol, I got two of ’em, but t’other’s only six 
months, and ain’t very good at spellin’ yet,” the 
driver replied. “Why not? I bin married more ’n 
five years. I’m twenty-six.” 

Wallace made no reply. He was thirty himself, 
and felt curiously ashamed. 

At the door of the Mansion House he gave the 
driver a dollar. “Keep the change — for the little 
girl,” he said. The other looked rather surprised, but 
finally put back his little bag of change into his pocket. 


12 Ci)c 90an m^o jFounD Cl)ti«tma$ 

“ Wall, seein’ yer put it thet way, I will,’* he said. 

But I don’t jest like it.” 

“ I am a long way from New York! ” thought Wal- 
lace, as he entered the hotel. 

The Mansion House of North Topsville was a 
relic of past generations. Large Doric pillars in front 
gave it an air of dignified antiquity; but the interior 
was surprisingly neat and clean, though darkened by 
the protecting portico. That it should remain open 
during the winter months surprised Wallace at first, 
but he learned later that most of the business visitors 
to the South Topsville mills stayed here, attracted by 
the superior accommodations and a rather famous 
kitchen, while a certain number of health seekers could 
always be relied on. He signed the register, and was, 
escorted to his room, a large, old-fashioned chamber 
with a broken pediment, like a highboy top, over the 
door, and an open fireplace. He ordered a fire laid 
at once, and began to unpack his bag. Outside, on 
the village street, he could hear sleighbells jingling, 
and presently the shouts of children going home from 
school. As soon as his trunk had come, he put on 
a woollen cap which pulled down over the ears (pur- 
chased the day before in New York), and hastened 
out of doors. 

The village street was packed hard by the sleigh 
runners. There were half a dozen old-fashioned 
stores here in the town centre, a white church, a 
small stone library, a bank, a town hall. The town 
hall was built of brick, a simple rectangular block with 
white stone trimmings, and looked very cheerful over 
the snow. Out of the town centre, in either direc- 
tion, the main street led beneath graceful arches of 


Cl)e ^an JOfio jFounD Cl)ti 0 tma 0 13 

bare elm boughs into the white country. Wallace 
turned west, following a crowd of children with sleds 
and toboggans. For a quarter of a mile the street 
was lined with substantial old houses, several of them 
of considerable architectural beauty, and nearly all, 
apparently, surrounded in summer by lawns and gar- 
dens. North Topsville was evidently still a good 
specimen of a too rapidly disappearing type of aris- 
tocratic New England village. It seemed to the man 
as he walked along behind the children that he was 
less a stranger here than in New York. He felt as 
if he were coming back home. He walked with 
memories of his own childhood in such a town, and 
the intervening years faded from his consciousness. 
He half expected to meet somebody whom he should 
recognize, and once, indeed, seeing a girl’s figure com- 
ing down the path from a Doric porch behind guarding 
evergreens, his heart gave a startled bound, for it 
appeared to his excited imagination the figure of her 
whose picture he had so recently unearthed. Most 
people, probably, know that curious sensation of false 
recognition. If we have been thinking much of a 
person, we will often see him a score of times in a 
single day, ahead of us in the crowd, perhaps, or sit- 
ting across the theatre. At any rate, the shock of 
this sensation accounted for Wallace Miller’s pro- 
nounced stare at the girl’s face, when they met at 
her gate. Her eyes returned his gaze for a second, 
as if she, too, were appraising him, and then she 
passed quickly by, leaving behind on the keen winter 
air the faintest of perfumes, not the perfume which 
comes in bottles, but which comes from garments 
kept in lavender, from soap and health. The man 


14 CJ)c ^an 2231)0 iFounD Ci)tii5tmas 

drew a long breath, rather astonished at the acute- 
ness of his nasal sense, long unused to subtler per- 
fumes, and pleasurably warmed by the encounter. He 
looked sharply at the house from which the girl had 
come, to fix it in his memory. There were plants at 
several of the square, small-paned windows, and the 
tracks of a sled and toboggan all over the lawn. 
Behind it he could hear children screaming and laugh- 
ing. He walked on more briskly. 

The road soon passed into more open country, and 
to the right was a long, smooth field, ending in a hill 
slope. Field and slope were alive with sleds and 
children, their shouts making a shrill, ceaseless chorus, 
almost like spring frogs. The man climbed through 
the fence and ascended the slope, attracting a few 
curious glances from the coasters, and stood at the 
top watching the sport. He felt ridiculously shy. 
He wanted to coast, he wanted to join in the sport, 
but he did not know how to begin. Nobody spoke to 
him. There was a group of red cheeked high school 
girls there, but his coming caused no flutter nor whis- 
pering among them, as he knew it would had he been 
younger. This made him feel uncomfortably and un- 
reasonably old. The smaller boys were paying no 
attention to anybody except themselves. The smaller 
girls were timidly coasting on a gentler incline of 
their own, and doing a great deal of the screaming. 
Two busy small boys were industriously hauling up 
a big toboggan, and bumping down on it over the 
runner tracks, hard put to keep it from swerving and 
upsetting them. Presently two other toboggans ap- 
peared, and had the same difficulty on the smooth, 
uncharted hillside. 


Clje #an Jiafto jFounD Cfttistmas 15 

The man finally plucked up his courage, smiling to 
himself at his own embarrassment, and asked the evi- 
dent owner of the first toboggan why he didn’t build 
a slide. 

“ Ehinno,” said that young person. “ What’s a 
slide?” 

“You don’t know what a slide is? ” exclaimed Wal- 
lace, glad to see that his scorn made an evident im- 
pression. “ The only real way to get speed and 
distance out of a toboggan is to have a slide. You 
use up half your speed now by the friction of steer- 
ing. All you’ve got to do is to make two banks of 
snow a couple of feet apart, and keep the sleds out. 
Then the chute between the banks will get almost glare 
ice, you won’t have to bother to steer, and you can go 
a mile a minute clear to the other end of the pasture.” 

“ Gee, let’s build one, Joe,” exclaimed the second 
small boy. 

“ Ain’t got no shovel,” said the first. 

“ If you’ll bring shovels tomorrow afternoon. I’ll 
help you,” said Wallace. 

“ Tomorrow’s Saturday,” the boy replied, with 
some scorn. 

“ So it is, I forgot,” Wallace laughed. ** Well, 
how about nine o’clock tomorrow morning, then ? ” 

“You’re on. Judge,” said Joe, easily, as he kicked 
the toboggan around to face down the slope. “ Want 
to try a ride?” 

Wallace sat down on the cushionless toboggan, be- 
tween the two boys, and with a yell of warning they 
started off. The additional weight in the centre made 
the task of steering too much for the helmsman. 
Two-thirds of the way down the toboggan began to 


16 Cjje ^an 2)01)0 jFound Cftttstmas 

pivot, skidded madly to the left, upset, and rolled all 
three . riders over and over in the snow. They picked 
themselves up, laughing, while other coasters shouted 
and jeered. The man’s wrists and neck were full of 
snow. His nose was scratched by a piece of crust. 
His eyes were weeping. But he laughed as he rose. 
“ That won’t happen when we get the slide,” he 
said. 

“ Ho, that’s fun,” the owner of the toboggan an- 
swered. “ Want to try it again ? ” 

I think I’ll wait till morning,” said Wallace. 

Good-bye till tomorrow.” 

So long,” said the boys, turning from him at once, 
as if he no longer existed. 

He went back to the road, digging snow out of his 
neck and sleeves, and feeling rather sore and wrenched. 
In front of the house with the Doric porch he now 
observed a toboggan standing. The girl was no where 
visible, but the toboggan was a hopeful possibility! 
He went back to the hotel and unpacked his trunk 
while the early twilight came on and his wood fire 
sparkled cheerfully. He felt cheerful again himself 
now, and sleepy with the unaccustomed country air, 
and pleasantly tired and hungry. Supper was an- 
nounced by a big bell clanged in the lower hall, and 
it was an excellent meal, with real maple syrup to pour 
on piping hot griddle cakes. Still sleepier and more 
contented, Wallace went back to his room to read, 
nodded over the pages in front of his fire, and finally 
decided to go to bed at the unheard of hour of nine. 
After he had undressed and turned out the light, he 
suddenly became aware of moonlight outside. Going 
to the window, he saw it gleaming palely on the 


Cl)c ^an mito jfounD Cftrigtmas; 17 

white roof of the church. The village street was 
still and almost deserted. The stores were closed. 
Save for a distant sleighbell, there was hardly a sound. 
He opened the window and sent his breath steaming 
out into the night, and then sucked back a great 
lungful of the sweet, stinging cold air. With a final 
glance at the white roof sleeping in the moonlight, he 
tumbled into bed, as the clock solemnly boomed nine, 
and almost before the last reverberation had died 
away into silence, he was asleep. 

He was awakened in the morning hy the clangor 
of the breakfast bell, breaking strangely in upon his 
dreams, and for several moments he lay in bed enjoy- 
ing the odd sensation of sunshine in his chamber and 
comparative quiet in the outside world. He heard 
sleighbells in the village street, and the voice of some- 
body saying “ good mornin’ ” to somebody else, with 
the old Yankee nasal inflection, which was like for- 
gotten music to his ear. At 8.30 he was through his 
breakfast, and set forth to find a snow shovel and a 
toboggan. There were plenty of shovels, but only 
one toboggan in the store. 

“ Thet’s the last one,” said the storekeeper. 

Kinder thought I warn’t goin’ ter sell it, seein’ it’s 
six dollars. The rest wuz three an’ four. Would 
you like the cushion, too ? Kinder absorbs the 
shocks ! ” 

Wallace took the cushion, too, and set out down 
the main street dragging his new purchase and feel- 
ing rather sheepish. Nobody, however, paid much 
attention to him. He looked for the girl at the house 
behind the evergreens, but she was not visible. The 
toboggan was still standing beside the Doric porch. 


18 Cf)c ^an COfjo jFounn Ciitistmas 

He passed on, vaguely disappointed, and was soon at 
the hillside. His two friends of yesterday were al- 
ready there, and with them six other small boys, with 
a total of four snow shovels. Evidently the word had 
gone forth that untoward events were on! Wallace 
was secretly pleased and rather flattered. He felt 
so shy with these boys that their response seemed to 
him a compliment. 

“Good morning!” he cried. “Well, you are 
ahead of time. I’ll bet you don’t get to school so 
early.” 

The boys grinned at this, looking at each other. 
Wallace felt more at ease. 

“ Well,” he said, “ let’s get busy right away. Let’s 
build the slide somewhere so it won’t interfere with 
the sleds. Over here a little to the left, eh ? ” 

The boys followed him to the left side of the slope, 
and under his direction they began to work. 

It did not take them long to raise banks nearly two 
feet high halfway down the hill, but before this much 
was completed a score of other coasters had arrived, and 
come over to watch the work. One large boy, with a 
sled, got into the incompleted slide and came whizzing 
down. 

“ Hi, get out of that ! ” yelled the workers. “ This 
is for toboggans.” 

“Aw, chase yourself. I’m goin’ down it again,” 
said the coaster, as he came back up the hill. 

“No, you’re not, is he, sir?” cried the workers. 

Thus appealed to, everybody looked at Wallace, 
including the large boy. 

That individual spoke up quickly. “ I guess this 
hill’s as much mine as it is yours,” said he, with the 


C&e ^an mbo jFounD C6tt0tmas! 19 

characteristic aggressiveness of his type , “ an’ I’ll 
coast where I please.” 

Wallace looked at him sharply. “You are consid- 
erable of a bully, aren’t you?” he said. “Well, 
I’m something of a bully myself. We’ve left all of 
this hill to sleds except just this narrow strip, which 
is going to be for toboggans. Everybody who’s de- 
cent will keep out of it with sleds. Anybody who 
isn’t decent, who’s just mean and nasty and selfish and 
not thoughtful for other peopk will have me and all 
these eight boys to reckon with. Now, young man, 
go ahead and try to coast here, if you care to ! ” 

Wallace’s voice didn’t rise above a conversational 
key, but he looked the bully square in the eyes, and that 
individual slunk off to the other side of the hill. 
The smaller boys looked at the man with evident 
admiration, and began to talk excitedly. 

“ Gee,” whispered Joe to Wallace, “ Jim never got 
a lacin’ down like that before! I’ll bet he comes and 
spoils the slide tonight, though.” 

“ When we get it done,” said the man, “ we’ll 
offer to take him down it on a toboggan. That’s 
the way to pull his teeth. He’ll be ashamed then, 
maybe.” 

No sooner had he spoken, than something made 
him turn. Standing close behind him was the girl of 
yesterday. In the excitement, she had come up the 
hill without his seeing her. She was dressed in a 
white angora wool cap, a white angora sweater, and 
a short, heavy skirt, with heavy knee boots below it. 
She held a toboggan rope in her hand, and beside her 
stood a yellow-haired youngster of six, with cheeks 
like two ripe apples. She was looking at Wallace. 


20 Cl)e ^an Wlbo jFounti Cl)t:i 0 tmas 

He unconsciously smiled and half nodded as his gaze 
met hers. She spoke, rather to all the boys than to 
him. 

“ That’s right,” she said, “ you scorch Jim’s head 
with coals of fire and maybe it will do him good. 
Some of these boys are in my Sunday School class,” 
she added more directly to Wallace, “ so I’ll just get 
a day ahead with the lesson ! ” 

The boys all laughed at this and Wallace said, 

“ That’s right. Carpe diem, in a new sense ! ” 
Then, lest he seem rude, he reluctantly turned back 
to the slide. Presently he saw the girl and her small 
charge tobogganing down the hill. He sent two of 
his own “ gang,” as he called them, down the slide 
to see how it worked, and set the rest to completing 
the bottom part. It was soon done, and with a shout 
all the eight boys piled up to the top, crowded aboard 
the toboggans, and one after another went yelling 
down. After a few trips the bottom was packed 
smooth, and the coasters scooted clean across the pas- 
ture at the bottom to the very road. 

“ Gee, this is great ! ” cried one of them. 

“You bet, best we ever had!” shouted another. 

Wallace looked along the hilltop and saw the girl. 
“ Run and tell your teacher, Joe, that the slide is 
for everybody who has a toboggan,” he said. “ Is 
that her son with her?” 

“ Ho, she’s Miss Woodford. That’s her sister’s 
kid,” said Joe, scampering off, while Wallace felt a 
secret relief and a glow of pleasure. 

Joe returned with the girl and two other younger 
girls as well, who had a toboggan. 

“ We built the slide for everybody,” said Wallace 


Cfte Qian Mho jfounD Cl)r{0tmas 21 

to Miss Woodford. “ It’s for the toboggans, so they 
won’t have to be steered. The sides make it per- 
fectly safe even for children. Try it.” 

“ It’s very nice of you,” the girl smiled. “ Our 
boys here in Topsville need a man to inspire and direct 
their play.” 

“ I fear I’m a poor hand, and a very inexperienced 
one,” Wallace answered. “ But I’m having a good 
time.” 

“ Doubtless that is why the boys are,” she replied, 
as she tucked her skirts around her trim boot-legs, 
told her little nephew to hang on tight, and Wallace 
pushed them over the brim. 

The slide grew more and more slippery, and the 
fun more ana more furious. Half the coasters came 
over to watch, or to beg for rides. Even Jim, the bully, 
cast envious eyes toward the slide. Now’s a good 
time,” said Wallace, to a couple of the boys. “ Go 
over and offer Jim a ride.” 

“ You do it, Joe,” said one of the boys. 

“No, you do it,” said Joe. 

“What’s the matter, are you afraid?” said the 
man. “You just show him once you’re not afraid 
of him, and he’ll come down off his high horse.” 

“ Ho, I ain’t afraid!” cried Joe, going at once to- 
ward the bully. 

“ Come on and try the slide on my toboggan, Jim,” 
the rest heard him saying. 

Jim scowled and hung back for a moment, but his 
curiosity got the better of him, and he came. 

“Take my toboggan, Joe,” said Wallace; “it’s 
bigger than yours.” 

Joe took it, Jim the bully and another boy and two 


22 Cfte #an mbo jFounD Christmas 

girls piled on, and went screaming down the slide. 
The man smiled, and turned to meet the smile of Miss 
Woodford. 

“Won’t you try mine?” she said. 

He put her on the front, and held the small nephew 
between them. That young person was very solemn. 
Wallace could feel the muscles of his little arms tighten 
as he gripped the toboggan rails. His little face was 
set, his lips parted, his yellow hair blown about his 
temples from under his cap. He was deliciously 
frightened by the speed. As they came to rest at the 
bottom, however, he automatically relaxed, and let out 
a bottled-up yell. 

“Having a good time, son?” asked Wallace, as a 
small hand grasped the rope beside his arm. 

“ My-name’s-Albert-Andrew-Goodwin,” the young 
person replied, all in one gasping breath. “ I-think- 
this-slide’s-the-bestest-fun-I-ever-had.” 

Wallace laughed, and so did the girl. 

“ My name is Wallace Miller and I quite agree 
with you,” he answered. 

“ My name is Nora Woodford, and I’m not inclined 
to present a minority report,” the girl smiled. 

“ What’s that, Auntie Nora, that thing you just 
said ? ” demanded Albert Andrew Goodwin. 

“ It’s my way of saying the slide is lots of fun,” 
she replied. 

“ Why don’t you just say it, then? ” the boy asked. 

Again the grown-ups laughed, and Wallace felt a 
curious thrill through his glove as the little hand be- 
side his on the toboggan rope pressed close against his 
fingers. 

At the top the small fellow took actual hold of his 


Cfie ^an miio JFounD Cf)tj0tmag 23 

hand, with a most engaging smile, and demanded that 
he steer them down again. This time Albert sat at 
the front, and Wallace grasped the rails at either side 
of the girl, to hold her on, while she put protecting 
hands about her nephew. The slide was already like 
glass, and it was developing a few spots where the 
banks were not quite true and the toboggans were 
thrown from one side to the other. Two thirds of 
the way down little Albert was whipped so sharply 
to the left that he let go of the rail. His aunt, with 
a scream, grabbed him hard, and the shift in her weight 
was more than Wallace could counteract at the speed 
they were traveling. The toboggan rode madly up 
the bank at an oblique angle and shot over on the 
other side, burying its nose in a drift and sending all 
three riders overboard in a complete header. Wallace 
was on his feet in a second, and had his arm about 
the girl, lifting her, for he saw that the child must 
be underneath. 

“ Are you hurt ? ” he cried. 

“ No, but Albert, quick ! ” she gasped. 

Nothing of Albert was visible save his legs. His 
head and body had completely disappeared. The legs 
were quite still, and something inside of Wallace went 
down to his boots with the sickening lurch of a badly 
run elevator. He put his hands through the snow, 
grasped the body, and lifted it up. It came up looking 
like a small snowman, wabbled in his grasp, straight- 
ened itself, and suddenly emitted a wail. 

“Oh, where are you hurt?” cried the girl, kneel- 
ing beside the child and dabbing the snow from his 
face and eyes. 

Albert blinked the water from his vision, medita- 


24 Cl)e ^an rntto jFounD Christmas 

lively lifted first one foot and than the other, stopped 
crying, and said, “ Why, I ain’t ! ” 

The change was so comically sudden that both man 
and girl laughed in nervous relief. 

“Are you sure?” she urged. 

“ Sure,” he replied stoutly. “ Ho, that wa’n’t noth- 
ing!”^ 

Again Wallace helped the girl to her feet. “ And 
you, are you sure?” he asked solicitously. 

“ I’m all right,” she said. “ I had Albert to land 
on. You’re a fine cushion, Albert.” 

“ And I had both of you,” Wallace laughed. “ It 
was a case of the women and children first, with a 
vengeance! Let me brush you.” 

As he stooped to do so, all three were suddenly 
aware of how snow-bepowdered they were, and laughed 
again, while the others on the hill, who had gathered 
about, laughed with them. 

“ Thank heaven we can laugh 1 ” Wallace whis- 
pered. “ When I saw those two little leggings 
so still in the snow I seemed to grow ten years 
older.” 

The girl looked into his face, and shuddered, with- 
out speaking. It was as though they had touched 
hands across a sudden gulf. He brushed the snow 
from her clothes as best he could, and then he spanked 
it off Albert, and on an impulse strange to him put 
his arms about the little fellow and gave him a hug. 
His eyes looked up to meet those of the girl, which 
were regarding him oddly. 

“ I didn’t know before that I liked kiddies,” he 
said, as if in apology. 

“You do, I’m sure,” she smiled. 


Cf)e ^an mt}o JfounD Clbti 0 tmasi 25 

Before any more toboggans. were allowed on the slide, 
Wallace and his gang made the banks higher and 
straighter at the dangerous points, and thus corrected 
the chute held like a vise. The coasters were soon 
whizzing down again. 

But before they could start back, the town clock 
struck twelve. 

“ Oh, gee, dinner time ! cried Joe. “ I’d rather 
slide.” 

“ The slide will be here this afternoon,” Wallace 
laughed. “ You go home to dinner before your mother 
gets after you, Joe ! ” 

The rest grinned at Joe, and followed Wallace and 
Miss Woodford out of the field. It was a considerable 
procession which marched up the road. Little Albert 
refused his aunt’s hand, proudly insisting on tugging 
his own toboggan, and chattering of his adventure. 
Half a dozen small boys disputed for the right to drag 
Wallace’s. Another boy carried his snow shovel. 
Even the bully was in the group. 

The girl looked back, laughing. “ I believe you 
are the Pied Piper,” she said. 

If I should confess to you,” he answered, that 
this morning I was afraid of these boys, as timid as 
a child before them, maybe you wouldn^t believe me. 
But I’m not used to kids.” 

She again darted an odd look of curiosity at him. 
‘‘Are you visiting in town?” she asked. 

He shook his head. “ I don’t know a soul here. 
I’m at the Mansion House. I just came — saw the 
name North Topsville on the time table and liked it. 
I’m hunting for Christmas.” 

Once more she looked at him. “ That shouldn’t 


26 Cf)c ^an mbo jFounD Cl)t{0tma0 

be hard to find. Christmas is nearly ever5rwhere, isn’t 
it?” 

Wallace shook his head. I’ve not met Christmas 
personally in a decade, at least,” he answered. 

The girl paused in front of the house amid the ever- 
greens. “ I think we can introduce it to you here,” 
she said, with a bright smile. “ We keep quite a 
supply on hand in Topsville.” 

Then she nodded to him, and to the children, and 
turned up the path. The bully touched his cap. 

“ Boys,” said Wallace, “ don’t you know what to 
do when a lady meets you, or leaves you? What is 
it, Joe?” 

Joe turned red. “ Touch yer cap,” he said. 

“ Exactly,” said Wallace, “ and Jim, here, was the 
only boy who did it. Good for you, Jim! ” 

It was Jim’s turn to color — with pleasure as well 
as embarrassment. The other boys looked at him. 
The villain of the early morning had now become 
the hero! They scattered their several ways in some 
perplexity, while Wallace walked on to his dinner, 
every nerve tingling with the excitement of the morn- 
ing, the unusual contact with small boys, the thrill 
of little Albert’s touch, his warm baby arms and hand, 
the sudden surge of horror at the thought of injury 
to him, the feeling of intimacy which followed the 
accident, the perfume of the girl’s hair, her bright, 
friendly smile, the whole atmosphere of naive enjoy- 
ment. * It wasn’t much like his mornings in New York, 
he reflected. And what an appetite he had ! 

But he discovered after dinner that he was tired, 
that the muscles of his legs ached from climbing the 
hill, that his hands were chapped and his face smarted. 


Cj)c ^an mbo JFounD Cj)ti'0tmas 27 

Indolence stole over him, and he curled up before the 
fire in his room and read a book, until the light began 
to fail. Then he went out once more, into the cold 
twilight, and his feet led him up the street to the house 
with the Doric porch. He told himself that he must 
inquire if Albert were really unhurt. Almost at the 
gate he met Miss Woodford, Albert, and several of 
the boys, which answered his unspoken question. 

‘‘Hi, where were you this after’ ?^’ called Joe. 
“ Gee, the slide’s so slippery now it’s most ice ! ” 

“Yes, an’ I mos’ fell off again twice!” cried little 
Albert Andrew Goodwin, running up to him, and 
thrusting a tiny hand into his. 

“ Did you ? ” cried Wallace. “ Well, now you see 
why you’ve got to hang on tight, all right.” 

The other boys moved on, and Joe led them in 
touching his cap to the girl. 

(“That’s right, Joe,” whispered Wallace, as the 
boy passed him.) 

Miss Woodford acknowledged the salute with a 
bright smile and a “Good night.” The little chap 
kept fast hold of Wallace’s hand. 

“ I gotta snow man in the back yard. You come 
’n see it,” he pleaded, tugging at his new friend’s fin- 
gers. 

Wallace laughed, a little embarrassed. “ I guess 
not today, Albert,” he said. “ It’s bedtime for little 
boys and snow men.” 

“ Ho, snow men don’t go to bed at all, an’ I don’t 
go till seven ! ” cried Albert. “ Please tell him to 
come. Auntie Nora.” 

You’ve asked him, dear,” said Auntie Nora, with 
a smile. “ I’m sure he’ll come for you if anybody.” 


28 C6e ^ait (KJijo jFounO Christmas 

Wallace looked at her, and her eyes met his for 
a second and did not tell him to refuse, so 
with Albert’s hand still tugging at his, he was taken 
up the path between the evergreens, around the big, 
square house, into a large garden space, where a snow 
man stood, with lumps of coal for eyes. 

“Why, how do you do, Mr. I. C. Snow!” cried 
Wallace, pretending to shake hands. “ I am glad to 
see you looking so well. I trust you don’t find this 
weather too cold for you ? ” 

Albert shouted with glee. “ Say it again ! ” he 
cried. 

Wallace put his ear to the snow man’s mouth, and 
shook his head gravely. “ Oh, that’s very sad 1 ” he 
said. “Very sad!” 

“What does he say?” Albert asked, crowding 
close. 

“ He says he’s got such a cold from not wearing 
a hat that he’s lost his voice,” Wallace answered. 

The boy looked solemnly puzzled for a second, and 
then burst into shouts of laughter. 

“Ain’t he funny, Auntie Nora?” he demanded. 
“ The snow man don’t really talk.” 

“ What ? " cried Wallace. “ Well, I guess you 
never listened very close ! ” 

“ I like you,” said Albert suddenly, grabbing his 
hand again. “ Come in an’ see my blocks.” 

“Do,” added the girl, noting Wallace’s hesitancy; 
“we will have some tea.” 

“ You are very kind,” Wallace answered, “ but I’m 
afraid our little friend is forcing your hospitality.” 

“We always have tea at this time,” she smiled. 
Her eyes were friendly. In her white cap and sweater, 


C{)e ^an mt)o jFounO Cl)t{stma 0 29 

her cheeks red with a day in the open, her hair curling 
out rebelliously^ about her temples, she was a temptation 
hard to resist. The warm little hand was tugging 
at his fingers. But Wallace managed to say, “An- 
other time, sonny,” and made his way to the street. 

The next morning he debated the propriety of going 
to church. He had not gone to church for so many 
years that the idea was invested with novelty. Yet 
he knew that he was going in reality to see the girl 
again, and it seemed hardly an appropriate motive. 
However, he went! 

A farmer sat directly in front of him, with a sun- 
burned neck like wrinkled leather, rising above a rub- 
ber collar. Wallace thought of his own grandfather, 
who had been a Yankee farmer, too. The whole 
congregation, and the bare meeting house with its 
gallery on three sides and its lofty pulpit reached by 
a winding stair, reminded him of his childhood. He 
saw Miss Woodford in the choir. She wore black 
furs, which became her as much as white. Presently 
she sang a solo, and her voice was sweet and quite 
evidently trained. Wallace found himself suddenly 
thrilled by it, as he used to be years ago by the voices 
of those he loved, and long after the congregation had 
rustled to silence and the minister had begun to preach, 
he sat with his eyes on the choir, in a delicious revery. 

When the sermon was over, and the congregation 
had sung the closing hymn and bowed for the bene- 
diction, there was an immediate outpouring from the 
pews and the hum of greetings. This was the social 
hour of the week. The minister came down from the 
pulpit, exchanging salutations. Children came run- 
ning in on their way to Sunday School in the vestry. 


30 Cl)c #an UMbo jFounD Cfttistmas 

Neighbors chatted in groups. Before Wallace had 
fairly left his pew, a farmer in starched best was grasp- 
ing him by the hand, and hoping he would come again. 
The minister came up and greeted him. A moment 
later he saw Miss Woodford drawing near. She put 
out her hand. “ Good morning,” she said. Then, 
turning to the minister, she added, Mr. Miller 
taught some of my boys in one day to do what I’ve 
not been able to teach them in a year — to touch their 
hats. I really think you ought to give him a Sunday 
School class.” 

“ Good gracious! ” gasped Wallace, with such evi- 
dently genuine amaze that the others laughed. 

“ I should be delighted to get a man into the Sun- 
day School,” said the minister. “Who knows, we 
might start up some Boy Scout work 1 ” 

“ Mr. Miller is just the man,” said the girl, with 
a twinkle. 

“ I don’t think this is fair of you. Miss Woodford,” 
Wallace put in. “ For all you know. I’m a heathen — 
maybe the Pied Piper, as you suggested.” 

“ The Pied Piper would have made an excellent 
scout master,” the minister smiled. “ Well, Mr. 
Miller, if you stay in North Topsville long, we shall 
hope to catch you yet.” 

He moved on, leaving the two young people to- 
gether. A second woman, in black, drew near, a few 
years older than Miss Woodford. “ May I introduce 
the mother of your friend Albert — my sister, Mrs. 
Goodwin,” said the girl. 

“ I am always delighted to meet Albert’s friends,” 
the second smiled. “He tells me you wouldn’t come 
to see his blocks. I really think you will have to come 


Cj)e ^an sajfto jFounD Cfitistraas 31 

if only to keep him quiet. For tea tomorrow, per- 
haps ? ” 

Wallace bowed, as Albert’s mother passed on. The 
girl turned toward the vestry. Now to my class,” 
she said. “ I do wish you would take it, instead.” 
Her eyes met his for a second, half twinkling, half 
earnest. 

He shook his head. “ Really, I’m unfit. You 
don’t know.” He spoke seriously. 

Their eyes were together a second longer, unspoken 
questions passing between them, and then she left him. 
As he went down the path from the church he heard 
behind him the shrill piping of the Sunday School, 
singing the opening hymn, and he smiled at the sound, 
for it touched forgotten stops in his memory. Gilsey, 
he reflected, was just about getting up at this moment, 
after his Sunday morning loaf in bed, and was proba- 
bly swearing at the hot water tap as he shaved himself. 
Smith and Stedman, maybe, were finishing breakfast 
at the club, and solemnly debating the tremendous 
question of how they would kill the remainder of the 
day. Mercer was getting ready the Sunday afternoon 
assignment book in a newspaper office stale with the 
tobacco smoke of the night before, and doubtless plan- 
ning to get away early for a bridge game — his Sun- 
day afternoon recreation. How they would all sneer 
at Wallace if they knew he was coming from church, 
and listening with wistful delight to the drone of 
Sunday School behind him! 

The following afternoon, when school was out, 
Wallace dragged his toboggan to the hill, and joined 
once more in the sport. The slide was still intact. 
The bully’s fangs had evidently been drawn. Miss 


32 CJ)e ^an JiQiJO jfounO ClJtistmag 

Woodford was there, with Albert. For an hour Wal- 
lace’s toboggan was packed with shouting small 
boys, who treated him now like one of them, an 
unconscious flattery which he found very pleasant. 
Then, as the sun began to sink through a green sky 
into the tops of the hemlocks far across the snowy 
fields, Wallace left his toboggan behind, for Joe 
to take proud charge of, and walked home with the 
girl and Albert. The shouts died away behind them. 
It was almost twilight in the village street. As they 
came to Miss Woodford’s gate, Wallace saw a red 
lamp in the window, glowing between the evergreens. 
He paused abruptly. 

“ I can’t tell you what a curious sensation that 
lighted window square gives me, gleaming behind the 
trees over the snow,” he said. But in some strange 
way it takes me back to the days when I was no older 
than Albert, and Christmas was a reality. Ever since 
I came to North Topsville I’ve had a curious sensa- 
tion of familiarity, though I was never here before 
in my life. Just now, if my mother should be waiting 
at the door. I’d not be surprised.” 

“Your mother is dead?” the girl asked. 

“ And my father. I left New England many years 
ago, and I guess I’ve been a man without a country 
ever since. Now I’m coming back home.” 

It may be he spoke wistfully, for the girl did not 
reply for a moment, and little Albert ran ahead with 
the toboggan. 

“We New Englanders never quite forget, do we? ” 
she finally said. “ We are like the Irish in that. I — 
I trust you will continue to feel at home in North 
Topsville. We are surely New England here, espe- 


C6e ^an ©aijo jFounn Cfitistmasi 33 

cially in our ratio of the sexes! I’m one of sixty-seven 
old maids in this small village.” 

Wallace looked at her, with her firm body in its 
white sweater, her full-colored cheeks, her keen, dan- 
cing eyes, and suddenly laughed. “ Then that’s proof 
positive of Mr. Shaw’s ‘ Man and Superman ’ theory,” 
he said, “ and — well, some of you are merely indif- 
ferent.” 

The girl darted a look at him. “ No woman ever 
tells what she really thinks of Mr. Shaw’s theory,” 
she replied, leading the way up the path. 

Presently Wallace was trying to drink tea and re- 
produce the Wool worth Tower in blocks at the same 
time, in a square, mahogany-furnished room which 
appeared to have been lived in for a century and yet 
to be freshly and cheerfully of today. He saw Miss 
Woodford for the first time without hat or wraps. 
She had run upstairs and returned with slippers on 
instead of high boots, and he noticed that her stockings 
were of heavy wool. Somehow he was pleased at this 
common-sense concession to the climate. Her hair 
was copious and rebellious. Inside of the house, she 
looked riotously healthy, in odd contrast to the women 
of New York. Her sister, evidently a recent widow, 
was more subdued, though she, too, had a twinkle 
in her eyes, a palpable inheritance from the white 
haired woman who sat upright and energetic at the 
tea table and astounded Wallace by saying, Since 
my daughter spoke of you I have read one of your 
stories in a magazine, and I don’t like it very 
much.” 

“Which one was it?” asked Wallace, looking up 
from the pile of blocks in front of him on the rug. 


34 Cfte ^an JSlfio jfounD C{)t{ 0 tma 0 

His eyes met the old lady’s, and she seemed pleased at 
the challenge. 

“ It was about a man and a woman — all maga- 
zine stories are — who have all kinds of emotions at 
a violin recital. It seemed rather turgid to me. I 
call that form of afFection a sublimated species of 
Dutch courage.” 

Wallace joined in the laugh. “ I guess you are 
right,” he said, “ but you must try to excuse me as 
a New Yorker. You see, we live in such a restricted 
round of artificial pursuits and pleasures that we have 
to substitute art for nature as a stimulant.” 

“ Speaking of stimulants, have some more tea,” said 
the old lady. Albert, pass the gentleman’s cup.” 

“ He ain’t got the tower did yet,” said the boy. 

“ Albert!” 

Albert brought the cup. 

Presently Albert’s mother took him off, protesting, 
to his supper, and Wallace and the girl sat before the 
fire while the mother chatted on an amazing variety 
of topics, evidently pleased at the chance of a new 
listener, and asked innumerable questions about affairs 
of the hour, which the man answered as best he could. 

The girl came with him to the outer door. 

“ I like your mother,” he said. 

“ Most people do, who aren’t afraid of her,” she 
smiled. 

As he drew on his gloves, she stood in the doorway 
not minding the cold, and the last glimpse he had 
was of her face, rosy and smiling, in the slit of golden 
light, her eyes alone telling him good night, while 
the face of Albert was suddenly squeezed through 


C6e ^an mho JFounD C 6 ri 0 tma 0 35 

between her skirts and the door frame and his small 
voice piped, “ I got a steam train you ain’t saw I ” 

“You haven t seen** Wallace heard faintly, as the 
door closed. 

Even the little shops in North Topsville were gay 
for Christmas. Nearly all had small evergreens be- 
fore the doors, and attempted window displays. As 
Wallace walked back for supper, it occurred to him 
that he ought to buy Albert a present. But there 
seemed to be nothing quite satisfactory in the local 
market. It would be a good joke to write and ask 
one of the To-Hell-with-the-Merry-Yule-Tide Asso- 
ciation to select it for him in New York. He smiled 
as he thought of Mercer’s remarks when the request 
came. What was the name of that Fifth Avenue 
toy shop, anyhow? Wallace searched his memory till 
the name came to him, and wrote at once for a toy 
aeroplane such as he had seen in the windows, the 
propeller operated by rubber bands. But he didn’t 
write to Mercer. He wanted to be sure of the toy. 

The next day it snowed, a soft, steady, dry fall, 
and after working all the morning before his cheerful 
fire, the ideas coming with unaccustomed fertility, 
Wallace set out for a tramp. He wondered if he 
dared ask the girl to go with him, and was still de- 
bating the point when he found himself on her porch. 
Yes, she would go; she loved to tramp in the snow. 
In three minutes she reappeared, wrapped in white 
woollens, and strode beside him down the path, while 
the wails of Albert were heard at being left behind. 

“ Poor chap,” said Wallace, it’s a great tragedy 
not to be allowed to do what the big folks are doing. 


36 Clje ^an $Q8o iFounD Cfittstmas 

Perhaps I can make him a snow lady to cheer him up 
when we get back. Where shall we walk? 

‘‘ How would you like to take a tramp to Christ- 
mas?” the girl asked. 

“ Have we time? ” he smiled. 

She didn’t answer, but set off up the road at a swing- 
ing pace. 

“ You see, the honor of the town is rather at stake,” 
she said presently. “ We can’t let you get away still 
a heathen. We’ve got to show you Christmas.” 

“ Will we meet Santa Claus ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, no, not in the daytime, silly. But we may 
see the prints of his reindeers’ hoofs.” 

They turned up a side road after half a mile of 
brisk walking, passed one or two farmhouses, and 
began to climb a hill. The snow, which had been 
stinging their faces, was now abating. The wind had 
broken into the northwest, and in that quarter a rift 
of blue sky appeared. 

‘‘ Look,” cried the girl, “ it is clearing I Oh, I’m 
going to show you something beautiful ! ” 

They now turned up a wood road, and began to 
make their way with difficulty through unbroken snow, 
four inches of feathery new fall on top, and beneath 
that the half crusted old snow through which their 
feet broke. Wallace found it hard work, and looked 
at his companion solicitously. “ Isn’t this too hard 
walking for you ? ” he asked. 

“ Are you getting tired ? ” she smiled. ‘‘ We really 
should have brought snowshoes, but you’ll have to 
go a considerable distance to fag me. I’m used to 
it.” 

“You are quite different from some women I’ve 


Cfie ^an mtio jFounD Cfitistmas 37 

known in recent years, that’s a fact,” said he. “ You 
are so wonderfully healthy ! ” 

‘‘I’m disgustingly so,” she laughed. “Look! One 
of Santa’s reindeer!” 

She was on her knees in the snow, examining a 
hoof print. “ And there are more ! ” she added. 
“ See, he’s tramped around that sumach bush, and 
nibbled off all the buds ! ” 

“Are we getting near Christmas?” asked Wallace. 

She rose, shook her skirt, and started on. “We 
are,” she cried, “ and here’s the sun to decorate the 
trees ! ” 

Sure enough, as she spoke the sun came out, and 
instantly the woods around them — a grove of young 
chestnuts and maples — became radiant with frostwork 
on every twig, arching into groins of tracery overhead. 
Wallace fairly gasped with delight, and the girl smiled 
into his face. 

“ Have you anything as nice as that in New York? ” 
she said. “ This is all mine, too. I own this wood 
lot all myself.” 

She hurried him on through the sunlit, elfin aisles 
of the frost cathedral till suddenly the hard timber 
ended, and a grove of young balsam and hemlock con- 
fronted them, with now and then a patriarchal old 
pine lifting far above the lesser trees and holding out 
the dazzling snow on its branches against the blue sky. 

“ Come in, come in,” the girl whispered, “ Christ- 
mas is in here ! ” 

Close behind her, he followed in among the ever- 
greens. The branches shook snow down upon them 
as they passed through till they were powdered white. 
A few chickadees hopped, half invisible, among the 


38 Clje ^an tmbo jFounD Ciiristmas 

thick foliage. A moment later they stood in an open 
glade, where a few dead goldenrod stalks stood up in 
lovely Japanese simplicity above the white carpet, and 
all about them was a ring of perfect Christmas trees, 
each loaded with snow on its lateral branches, dazzling 
snow against the green in the afternoon sun. Above 
was the blue winter sky. Only the chickadees’ song 
broke the perfect silence. 

“ This is where the Christmas trees live,” said 
the girl, softly. “Now, do you believe?” 

“ I believe,” he answered. “ And there is a present 
for me on every branch.” 

“What is that?” 

He looked into her face. “ Perhaps I can’t tell 
you now,” be answered. “ I shall have to take it 
home and open it. I’m not used to presents, and I 
can’t guess from the feel of the bundle.” 

“ I hope it’s something nice,” she smiled. 

“ I’m sure of that,” said he, his eyes still on hers. 

So they stood for an instant, their eyes meeting, and 
then her gaze dropped. 

They spoke more seriously as they tramped home- 
ward. 

“ Your mother’s criticism of my story, it was just 
— I see that now,” he said. “ After all, to anyone 
who lives near woods like these, who has children to 
care for, and neighbors’ troubles to adjust, and the 
welfare of a community on his conscience, the life 
of some of us in New York, between theaters and 
concerts and clubs and teas, must seem rather — well, 
rather useless. I’ve thought sometimes — most of the 
time, I fear — that life outside of New York was a 
pretty dull and deadening thing, that I couldn’t be 


Cfie ^an JiHijo jFounO Cljtistmag 39 

happy anywhere else. That’s the typical New York 
view. Yet all the while these woods were here, these 
elfin aisles of frost and twig — and — and you walk- 
ing down them.” 

I know the New York view very well,” she an- 
swered, after the briefest pause, in which his last 
personality seemed to hover between them till she put 
it from her, not angrily, still less coquettishly, but 
rather as an interruption to graver thought. “ But 
if you lived here in North Topsville long you would 
learn that there is something to be said for New 
York, too. I should hate to live in New York all 
my days. I think I should rise up like Samson and 
push over the walls if I were cooped up in a flat. 
But you noticed how mother just ate you up conver- 
sationally? Well, that was because you came from 
New York, I mean because you had touched all the 
currents of thought and activity just by being there 
amid so many active people. We have to go down 
to New York once in a while to restock our brains 
as well as our wardrobes. And you’ve no idea how 
good the old street k)oks when we come back ! ” 

“ But here,” Wallace said, you have neighbors, 
you have a community life, you are of use to other 
people. I suppose one could be in town, too, if he 
were big enough to realize the opportunities — to go 
out for them. But the average man in a city isn’t 
big enough.” 

“ Of use to other people, yes,” she answered, ea- 
gerly. ‘‘That more than anything else is at the 
bottom of what silly little philosophy of life I, as a 
woman, am permitted to have. My friends in New 
York ask me, as they are rushing me ofE to a concert 


40 €tie #an 22J|)o jFounD Cfitistmas 

or a theater or a tea, what I find to do with myself 
in the country all winter. I don’t tell them — what’s 
the use? But there’s so much to do! So much I’m 
not fitted to do, though I try. You know Joe, who 
helped you build the slide — the merry, red-haired 
little chap? You must like Joel Joe’s father drinks. 
How are we going to keep Joe from drinking? We 
mustn’t let him go the same way, must we? That’s 
just one of a hundred problems — all too hard for me. 
Sometimes I come out here to these woods and just 
ask and ask for help 1 ” 

Wallace looked into her flushed, eager face, lovely 
in its transfiguration of earnestness, and something 
in his own soul rose up and choked him. He saw 
his life as utter selfishness, and he was ashamed, 
ashamed as he had never been before. 

“I — I — came here looking for Christmas,” he 
said slowly, “ but I guess it’s something different from 
what I thought. I guess I was just a sentimental 
searcher after my lost childhood. Christmas is — is 
service, isn’t it? ” 

The girl looked at him, and suddenly put out her 
hand. He took it in his. ^‘Yes, oh, yes!” she an- 
swered. It is service and the joy of service. It 
is just being glad of the chance! Oh, please always 
believe that ! ” 

She gave his hand an eager pressure, while her face 
glowed to his. 

‘‘ I promise,” he answered. 

Then her fingers slipped away, and they tramped 
on in silence, deep in their thoughts. The woods 
seemed more than ever to him a frost cathedral. 

Out on the open road, in the freedom of clear 


Clje ^an TOo JFounD C{)ti0tmas 41 

walking, they swung along at a faster pace, and 
laughter returned. They entered her house for tea, 
and once more Wallace saw her rebellious hair 
about her face, and once more the little hands of 
Albert grasped his, dragging him to see his toys, 
and sent a thrill to his heart, and once more he sat 
opposite to the girl in the firelight and talked, with 
the mother leading the conversation. He felt as if 
he were once more almost a part of a real family, 
as he had not been for many, many years. It was 
with a pang that he rose to go. The girl shook hands 
with him in the door. He could only say “ Thank 
you,” awkwardly, and went to his hotel in a daze, 
like a man walking in new wOirlds not yet real- 
ized. 

The next morning he wrote to New York for a 
Boy Scout manual, and for more of his clothes and 
possessions. At dinner a message came from the girl 
asking him to join in a trip to the woods after a 
Christmas tree, and of course he went. At the Wood- 
ford house he found a big lumber sledge waiting, with 
Albert already dancing up and down beside the driver, 
and Joe, with three other boys, dangling their legs 
behind. The girl soon joined them, and they went 
jingling up the street, the youngsters chattering, and 
yelling at their companions on the walk. 

When they reached the grove of balsams and hem- 
locks, everybody sprang from the sledge and began 
to prospect for trees. 

“ Don’t let them cut any from the Christmas ring,” 
whispered Wallace. “I — I shouldn’t want that 
ring altered. Please ! ” 

The girl looked at him, and colored a little, nodding 


42 Cije ^an (KHiJO jFounD C{)ti0tma0 

an affirmation. “You haven’t told me what the 
present was,” she whispered. 

“ I will — some day,” he answered. “ I can’t quite 
make it out myself yet.” 

For the next five minutes there was much scamper- 
ing about and excitement and shouting. But pres- 
ently each boy selected a balsam, and Wallace, leading 
Albert by the hand, up to his tiny knees in snow, 
found a tree which just suited that young person, and 
then the ax went the round, and the sledge was loaded 
with the fragrant evergreens. 

On the homeward trip, Wallace was aware of the 
old Christmas tingle in his veins, for beside him the 
boys chattered of their holiday hopes, of sleds and 
books and tools and toys long desired; behind him 
was the pile of fragrant balsams; all about him was 
the white world and the cold air and the jingle of 
sleighbells. But he was aware of something else — 
strange and new, of which his memory had no record. 
He felt an odd, new tenderness toward these children ; 
their chatter was music to him, yes, to him who lived 
between his club and his apartment and never saw 
a child from one month to the next ! He put an arm 
about Albert to hold him on the sledge, and longed 
suddenly to press the little body hard against his side. 
He was aware, too, of the girl — above all of the girl ; 
but not, somehow, apart from these other little lives 
and this new tenderness for childhood, but rather as 
the crown and completion of his mood. He thought 
of it first as his mood, and then mentally altered the 
word. No, it was not a mood. It was a new, spir- 
itual attitude, surely. It was his present on the Christ- 
mas trees, the present she had given him. He longed 


Cfie ^an taifio JTounn Cl)ti 0 tma 0 43 

to tell her of it. He looked at her, over the laughing, 
eager faces of the boys, and her eyes smiled back. He 
was too happy to speak. Perhaps she knew that, for 
she did not speak, either. When he took her hand 
to help her alight, it seemed to him as if they were 
older friends than when the ride began. An hour 
later, in the twilight dimness of her hall, she said to 
him: 

“ Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Mother wants 
you to dine with us — early, because of Albert — 
and maybe you’ll help us set up the tree and decorate 
it. We’ll try to be as Christmasy as we can for 
you.” 

“ Tomorrow I’ll — I’ll tell you what the present 
was,” he answered. ‘‘Ah, you’ve shown me Christ- 
mas already. I can’t explain — perhaps I shouldn’t 
say anything — but somehow I have felt today as 
if I had known you a long time, as if I had known 
you always, but something had separated us.” He 
laughed a little, embarrassed how to continue, for 
she was silent, her face averted. “I — guess that’s 
a pretty common way for a man to feel when he 
meets somebody who comes into his life with a big, 
glad upsetting rush,” he went on. Then he finished 
lamely, “ Rosetti has a poem about it, I recall.” 

There was a long silence. In the house behind 
Wallace could hear Albert’s voice, chattering ex- 
citedly to his mother as he ate his supper. In the 
sitting room he could hear the old lady poking the 
fire energetically — she did everything energetically. 
A big grandfather’s clock on the stair landing ticked 
in time to his heart throbs — a curious, irrelevant 
fact which his mind laid hold of as the mind will 


44 Cfie ^an OJfto JFounD Cfttistmas 

in such tense moments. Finally the girl spoke, her 
voice low, but her eyes looking frankly up into his. 

“ What you have just said seems to connect me, a 
little more personally than I’m afraid I deserve, with 
Christmas,” she answered. “ Isn’t it really little 
Albert you’ve known so long, not I ? ” 

“ It is you — Auntie Nora,” he whispered hack. 
“ Oh, I can’t tell you now, but I will — I will ! 
Why were all the intervening years?” 

“ We are taught there is a reason for everything,” 
she smiled, her eyes veiled as a woman can veil her 
eyes when she chooses. But her color was high, nor 
did she move away from him. In the half dusk of 
the hall they were close together to see each other’s 
faces, and to hear each other’s low spoken words. 
Her presence thrilled him. “ Good night,” he sud- 
denly whispered, taking her hand and holding it hard 
in his. ‘‘ I shall find Christmas tomorrow ! ” 

‘‘I — I hope so,” she whispered back. 

Her smile had gone, and the veil from her eyes. 
They seemed suddenly the eyes of all good women he 
was looking into. They gazed into his and told him 
in some mysterious way that a bond existed between 
him and her, that she desired his happiness, that she 
desired it to be the happiness which comes from the 
highest living. Her hand was warm in his. She did 
not withdraw it, but held his fingers firmly, while 
her eyes were lifted telling him these things the tongue 
cannot utter. His own eyes filled with strange tears, 
of happiness and humbleness, and he left her in silence. 

At his hotel room he found the big parcel contain- 
ing Albert’s aeroplane, and also, in his mail, a final 
threat from the other members of the To-Hell-with-the- 


Cfte ^an iSMfto iFounO Ci)tistma 0 45 

Merry- Yule-Tide Association. With a smile, he put 
the letter in his pocket, and, unpacking the aeroplane, 
consumed the half hour before dinner putting it to- 
gether. When it was assembled, he placed it on his 
bed, contemplated it in the light of Albert’s emo- 
tions — and found it good. 

It was there on the bed when he came up from 
dinner — a kiddie’s toy in his room, a warming re- 
minder, a symbol. He drew a picture and wrote a 
poem to go with it, and then, seeing the moonlight 
on the village roofs, he went out into the street, his 
shoes squeaking on the packed snow in the zero weather, 
and swung up the road. In the house behind the 
evergreens the sitting room window squares glowed 
warmly. Inside, by the fire or the lamp, she was sit- 
ting. Wallace two weeks before would have laughed 
down the suggestion that he could be such a banal 
idiot as to haunt the roadway before a woman’s house, 
thrilled by the thought that she was inside. Yet here 
he was, in the moonlight, gazing at the red window 
squares beyond the snowy evergreens, all his conscious 
being flooded with the memory of the girl within 
and the sense of home and hearth and loved ones. 

Home and hearth — those words began to chime 
in his brain. Losing them, one lost Christmas. 
Christmas was service, and the joy and celebration of 
service, she had said. But were not they, the home 
and hearth, at the beginning and the end of service? 
WTiat was all the industrial struggle of the world 
for at the bottom but to gain them? What was 
liberty but the opportunity to enjoy them? What 
generous or holy impulse but owed its birth to them, 
where even the race is born? The light went out 


46 Cl)e ^an JFounD Cj[)ti 0 tmas 

behind the evergreens, and a moment later reappeared 
in the second story. He saw a figure come to the win- 
dow, look for a second, and then draw down the 
shade. It was she ! That was her chamber ! 
Foolishly, happily, tenderly, Wallace lifted his face 
toward it and shaped his lips into a kiss. 

As he went back to the hotel his life seemed as 
clear before him as the shadows of the tree trunks 
cast by the moonlight on the snow. 

Late the next afternoon, when he arrived at the 
house behind the evergreens, a large, mysterious par- 
cel under his arm, Albert greeted him in the hall with 
shouts of delight, demanding to know if the parcel 
was for him. 

“For you? What an idea!” said Wallace. “I 
met Santa Claus just now flying over the church, and 
he dropped this down to me, telling me to give it 
to the best boy in North Topsville. You don’t get 
it unless you can prove you’re the best boy. Myl 
I had a hard time catching it, for Santa was up nearly 
as high as the top of the steeple when he dropped it. 
Lucky I’m a ball player!” 

“ I’m the bestest boy,” said Albert. “ My mother 
said so yesterday to Mrs. Perkins, ’cause I heard 
her.” 

“What does Auntie Nora say? The law requires 
two witnesses, you know.” 

“Auntie Nora says it will depend on how Albert 
behaves tonight,” said a voice on the landing. 

Wallace looked up. The girl he had seen only in 
rough short skirt and outing woollens, with rebellious 
hair, was descending toward him in silks, a jeweled 
pendent at her bare throat, her shoulders gleaming. 


Ci)e CQfto jfounD Cftti 0 tma 0 47 

She was very beautiful, and the hand she extended 
toward him might, he thought, have been the hand 
of a princess which he should stoop and kiss. 

“ Hi, Auntie Nora’s all dressed up! ” cried Albert. 

Why’d you all dress up. Auntie ? ” 

The princess blushed and laughed, and said, “ Now 
Auntie Nora thinks you’re not the best boy in town, 
because good boys don’t make personal remarks.” 

But I think you’re very beautiful,” said Albert, 
suddenly throwing his arms about her. “ Isn’t she, 
Mr. Miller?” 

“ She is, indeed, Albert, she is the loveliest lady 
in the world I ” Wallace answered, his voice intense, 
his eyes looking over Albert, fascinated. 

The girl hid her face on Albert’s shoulder, while 
that young person added the further comment, “ Why, 
your cheek’s orful hot. Auntie.” 

** Now you’re the worst boy in town,” she said, 
“ and you won’t get Santa’s box, for certain ! ” 

‘‘ I’m not so sure,” said the man, as Albert freed 
himself from his aunt and rushed off with the box 
to the sitting room. 

The girl had scarce lifted her rosy face to Wallace, 
their eyes meeting in silence, when her mother and 
sister descended the stairs, and the cord was snapped. 
But it was at the girl’s side that Wallace entered 
the sitting room, and as they passed through the door 
together their hands brushed, and he knew that she, 
too, felt the spark. ' 

In the middle of the sitting room lay Albert’s tree, 
mingling its odor with the odor of burning apple 
wood. Albert was hovering about it. “ How’s it 
going to stand up ? ” he demanded. 


48 €bc mbo JFounti Cijdstmas! 

“ Maybe we’ll bore a hole in the floor,” Wallace 
suggested. 

Albert regarded him gravely. “No, I don’t think 
grandmother would approve,” said he, lapsing as he 
sometimes did into a quaint adult vocabulary. 

“ When I was little, we used a tub of furnace coal,” 
Wallace laughed. 

“ Come on ! ” cried Albert. “ I know where the 
tub is ! ” 

His mother grabbed his flying coat tails, and di- 
verted him to the dining room. The excitement of 
dining with the family, of candles and turkey, of a 
big tinsel star suspended over the centre of the table, 
made him quite forget what he was about, and he 
was talking rapidly as he pulled up his chair. 

“ Albert ! ” said his grandmother. 

The three women bowed their heads, and Wallace 
bowed his. 

Albert drew in his breath, expelled it in a grace, 
had just enough left for the “ Amen,” and instantly 
resumed his interrupted chatter. The elders exchanged 
smiles, but Wallace was thinking how at that moment 
five members of the To-Hell-with-the-Merry-Yule- 
Tide Association were on their way toward Del- 
monico’s, and of what a contrast to this little act of 
old-fashioned devotion the preliminaries of that feast 
would be. He grinned to himself at the irony 
of it. 

Wallace’s attention during dinner was divided be- 
tween the girl at his side and the boy opposite, 
between efforts to talk sense and nonsense, for Al- 
bert loved his nonsense, and demanded minute details 
of Santa Claus’s appearance as he drove over the 


CJje ^an CO|)o jFounD Cl)ti0tma0 49 

church steeple, which he accepted with the paradox- 
ically trustful unbelief of small boyhood. Wallace 
finally got into a considerable argument with the old 
lady regarding the number of reindeer in Santa’s 
team, she insisting that in her day, at any rate, there 
used to be twelve. In the excitement of the debate, 
the plum pudding was forgotten, and suddenly it ap- 
peared, burning merrily, and then everybody stopped 
talking to cheer. 

After dinner, Albert was permitted to stay up long 
enough to see the tree mounted. He went for a tub, 
while his aunt took Wallace to the cellar for a big 
hod of furnace coal. One must make all the prepara- 
tions one’s self on Christmas Eve! She held her 
skirts high as they went laughing over the dusty, un- 
cemented floor, and her silk clad ankles shone in the 
dim light. In the far corners of the cellar dark 
shadows seemed to crouch and stir. She gave a mock- 
ing little shiver. 

“ I used to be so terrified down here when I 
was a child! ” she said. “ I don’t remember whether 
it was rats or ghosts.” 

Wallace filled the hod, and on the way back from 
the bin stopped in front of the furnace. 

** 1 want to look into a furnace,” he said. “ I 
haven’t been down in a cellar and looked into a fur- 
nace since I was a boy and had to do it every night 
and morning. It is so homey ! ” 

He opened the door, and the warm red glow came 
out and fell full on the girl’s face and bare shoulders, 
as she stood close beside him, peering in. He turned 
from the fire to look at her. 

“You are so beautiful!” he whispered. 


50 Cl)c ^an mho JFounli ClJtiStmaiEf 

“ Sh — , you mustn’t,” she answered. But her color 
rose and her eyes softened. 

“ I must, I must ! ” he exclaimed. “ I cannot help 
it any longer! You are so beautiful, and so good! 
If Fd stayed in New York I should be at the dinner 
of the To-Hell-with-the-Merry-Yule-Tide Associa- 
tion. Now Fm gazing into Heaven with the most 
wonderful woman in the world 1 ” 

“ It doesn’t look exactly like Heaven,” she twinkled, 
pointing to the wallowing little spits of flame above 
the bed of coals, and moving a little from his side. 
“Come, we must go back!” 

He followed her reluctantly up the stairs, into the 
rear hallway. There, for a brief second, she faced 
him soberly. 

“ Fm — Fm glad you are not at that horrid asso- 
ciation you spoke of,” she whispered, and ran ahead 
swiftly into the sitting room. 

It was not long before the tree stood erect in the 
centre of the room; its top just bent against the ceil- 
ing, and poor Albert was ordered off to bed, refusing 
however, to go, unless Wallace carried him up on 
his shoulder and his aunt undressed him. 

“ Auntie Nora lets me kick my shoes,” he explained. 

Wallace swung him up and marched up the stairs 
with him, Auntie Nora following behind. There 
was an open fire in the little chap’s nursery, and his 
stocking hung from the mantle. There were toys on 
the floor. When, a few moments later, he came 
dashing out from the bathroom in a long flannel 
nightie, followed by the girl, he ran to the fireplace 
and pinched the toe of the stocking. Then, instinc- 
tively, he held his hands out toward the blaze, and 


C!)e ^an mtto JFounD C!)rf 0 tmas 51 

Wallace saw his Christmas card — saw the warm red 
firelight reflected on the little figure, the dangling 
stocking, the cold moonlight on a whitened world 
through the window beyond. He almost held his 
breath, whispering to the girl what it was that held 
him so in the picture. 

They stood side by side a moment, watching Albert, 
who was gazing in silence into the fire, his chatter 
suddenly stilled. 

“What are you thinking about, son?” said Wal- 
lace, presently. 

“ I was thinking maybe Santa ’d get his feet burnt 
if the fire didn’t go out,” Albert replied. 

“ Well, you say good night to Mr. Miller now, 
and go to bed,” his aunt laughed, “ and we’ll put it 
out.” 

The boy ran over and flung his arms about Wal- 
lace’s neck, giving him a soft, dabby kiss on the cheek. 
“ Good night ! ” he cried. Then he dashed into his 
chamber. 

When the girl came back, she found Wallace stand- 
ing in front of the fire, looking into the coals. She 
came over and stood beside him. 

“ Come,” she said softly, “ we must go down and 
decorate the tree.” 

He put out his hand and took hers, drawing her 
closer to his side. 

“ That present,” he said, “ I have not told you 
what it was. It was the gift of Christmas, it was the 
gift of a new spirit, it was the, gift of my lost child- 
hood — it was the gift of love.” 

She did not speak, but her hand lay warm in his, 
and her fingers closed a little tighter about his own. 


52 C!)e ^an (DQfio jFounD Cfjtistmasi 

“When I suddenly saw my Christmas card right 
here in flesh and blood tonight,” he went on, “ I was 
not surprised. It is but a symbol. Once I was the 
little boy on that card. Now I am my own father 
and mother looking at him. Last night I stood out 
there a long while before your windows, realizing 
that hearth and home are the altars of Christmas, 
alike its foundation and the flower of its spirit. I 
realized that, because love had entered my heart, be- 
cause you had entered my heart. I have been so 
selfish these many years! I have not helped others, 
I have not liked children, I have been far away from 
all the deep, natural instincts. But you have brought 
me back. You have given me the present of a new 
spirit, the Christmas spirit.” 

“ You were not really so selfish as you thought, 
she whispered, “ and you always loved children, only 
you didn’t have a chance to find it out. I knew that 
as soon as I saw you.” 

He put his arm about her waist and felt the per- 
fume of her hair beneath his face, as her head rested 
on his shoulder. 

“ It is so short a time,” he said, “ and I am so un- 
worthy. Why should you care for me ? ” 

“ It has been a very long time,” she answered softly. 
“ I am not a child. I have known the man whom I 
should love, and only waited for him till he came, 
and till he, too, knew. That is what those interven- 
ing years were for — that we might learn.” 

She lifted her face, then, and he bent down his 
head and kissed her, while his eyes closed with the 
wonder of it. 

“Auntie Nora, I want a drink of water,” came 


Cfte ^an 5231)0 JFounD Cl)t(0tma0 53 

the voice of Albert suddenly. “ What are you whis- 
pering about in there?” 

“ Maybe we were talking to Santa,” she answered, 
as she slipped from her lover’s arms and ran to get 
the water. 

Hand in hand, they moved down the stairway, and 
her eyes flashed back at him like two pools of happi- 
ness as she went ahead through the sitting room 
door. 

The three women and Wallace spent a gay and busy 
hour hanging the tree with tinsel and candles and 
stars and presents. When it was nearly finished 
Nora disappeared. Presently she came back with a 
parcel. 

“ This is for you, from mother and Albert,” she 
said to the man. You ask Santa to put it in your 
stocking tonight.” 

“ Yes, and come tomorrow morning and let me see 
what I’ve given you ! ” chuckled the old lady. 

Both Albert’s mother and grandmother had bidden 
him a Merry Christmas and gone upstairs to tie up 
the presents hidden away from the prying eyes of the 
youngster, when Wallace rose to leave. The girl 
stood in front of him, between the glittering tree and 
the fireplace. The red glow threw her beautiful body 
into high relief. She put her hand into the bodice 
of her gown and drew out a tiny parcel. 

“ This is something for your stocking, too,” she 
said, “ not from Albert nor mother.” 

He took it tenderly. “And I have nothing for 
you,” he answered, “ for you who have given me every- 
thing — who have given me life anew ! ” 

“ I have given you nothing which I haven’t re- 


54 Cfie mho jFounD C6t:f0tmai0; 

ceived back again,” she whispered, suddenly coming 
into his arms. 

Her lips were close to his ear in the doorway. 
“ Merry Christmas, dear,” they said. 

He kissed her hair. ‘‘Those words mean more 
than I can utter now,” he answered. “I — Fm not 
used to saying them so. Oh, may the Author of 
Christmas guard and keep you ! ” 

He went down the path between the evergreens, 
and the moonlight poured a soft, golden glory on the 
white world, which had never seemed to him so 
beautiful. 

He hung up his stocking when he reached the hotel, 
and put his two presents into it. When morning 
came, he sprang out of bed, shut the window, turned 
on the steam, grabbed his stocking, and climbed back 
under the covers. He opened the parcel from Albert 
and the old lady first, and drew forth a large barley 
sugar elephant, which he gave a slow, contemplative 
lick with his tongue, reviving memories of his child- 
hood. Then he opened the other present, with fingers 
that bungled in their eagerness. It was a quaint and 
valuable old scarf pin, a ruby set in seed pearls, and 
wrapped around it was a tiny note. 

“ This was my father’s. I have been keeping it 
for you. Dearest, on our first Christmas.” 

Wallace smoothed out the bit of paper and read 
it again and again, foolishly happy. Then he rose, 
beaming on the world in general, pinned an extrava- 
gant present for the chambermaid on his pillow, in 
an envelope labeled “ Merry Christmas,” and went 
down to breakfast. As soon as the meal was over, he 
hastened out to the telegraph office, chuckling to him- 


C&e ^an (KBJjo iToutiD Cfirfstmas 55 

self, and sent five telegrams to the five members of 
the To-Hell-with-the-Merry-Yule-Tide Association. 
He wished that he had thought to send them the night 
before, to the dinner. But it was not too late even 
now. The five telegrams were alike. They all 
read — 

Merry Christmas! 

“ You can have eight more words for your money,’* 
said the operator. 

“ I don’t need ’em,” he answered. ** Those two 
will do the trick.” Then he hastened, almost run- 
ning, up the street. 

Albert was already out in the front yard, pursuing 
his aeroplane over the snow, while the three women 
stood in the windows, watching him. He rushed at 
Wallace to give him a hug and a ‘‘ Merry Christmas,” 
and then dashed back to wind up the propeller again. 
The door opened as Wallace stepped upon the porch, 
and in the hall he felt, like a man in a dream, two 
arms about his neck, and another ** Merry Christmas ” 
whispered in his ear. 

In the sitting room the old lady came forward to 
greet him, regarding his face sharply. She took his 
hand in one of hers, and put the other on his shoulder. 

“If my daughter hasn’t said it, I will say it for 
her,” she remarked — “ this is so sudden ! But I am 
too old a woman to be surprised at anything young 
folks will do. I believe you are a good man, for I 
have known many of both sorts and have never been 
fooled yet. Are you ? ” 

“ Only negatively,” he answered, “ till you showed 
me Christmas.” 


56 Clje ^att mbo jFounO Cfttistmas 

“Well, Christmas is a very good time to begin,’' 
said the old lady. “ Here is a present for you.” 

She brought him a token from the tree, while the 
younger women stood near him, the widow with her 
arm about Nora’s waist. He opened the package, 
and found within a beautiful old-fashioned watch fob, 
and a card, “From your new mother.” He knew 
instinctively that it had been her husband’s, and that 
its gift to him was a sacrifice not lightly made. In 
his eyes it linked him with the past, in hers it bound 
him with the future. He held this link of amethyst 
and gold in his hand, touched to silence, and then 
walked over and kissed the old lady on the cheek, while 
she patted his hair with a little laugh that was sud- 
denly half a sob, and the two younger women watched 
the scene tenderly, the one with soft, happy laughter, the 
other in silence and with a furtive glance through the 
the window toward her son. 

He felt a great, heart-warming, new instinct to 
protect and guard them all, to keep inviolate the gentle 
atmosphere of this old room, to watch over the little 
chap who was playing and shouting out there in the 
snow. The mother presently went to the rear of the 
house to attend to her housekeeping, and as Wallace 
and Nora sat talking softly before the fire, he was 
aware of the elder sister looking wistfully at them 
from her seat at the window, where she could also 
keep an eye on Albert. 

“ This is only her second Christmas without John,” 
the girl whispered. “ Poor Marion ! I feel almost 
selfish today in my new happiness.” 

Wallace watched the other woman steal softly from 
the room, and he saw that she was clenching her 


Cbe ^an CSJ&o jfounQ Clitistmas 57 

handkerchief in her hand, and biting her under lip. 
When she had gone, Nora slipped to a footstool, her 
hands crossed over his knees. He laid his hand gently 
on her hair. 

‘‘ All the deep mysteries of love and death and sor- 
row seem opening to me on this Christmas morning,” 
he said. “ I don’t quite know whether to laugh or 
to cry.” 

The girl raised her face to his, and her own eyes 
were misty now. 

“ Poor, poor Marion ! ” she said. Oh, now I 
know what she has lost ! ” 

Her hands suddenly clasped him hard, as if he were 
about to slip away. 

Just then the front door opened, and Albert dashed 
into the room. The girl did not rise. He came over 
to them as if there were nothing unusual in their atti- 
tude, crying that his aeroplane had stuck in a tree out 
of his reach. 

“ We’ll get it in a minute,” said Wallace, drawing 
the boy to him. As he held the little body close against 
his side, he looked down again at the girl. 

“And now I know, also, what she has found,” he 
whispered. 

The girl’s eyes looked into his for all reply, and 
Albert, awed by the silence, gazed from one to the 
other without speaking a word. 


THE END 


DEC 3 '1913 




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